IMovie Video Import

Sorry to sound dumb but I can not find the information I need.
Can you only import video taken on iPhone or iPad to iMovies or can you use the lightening SD Card Reader to import videos from your SD card?
If you can import from lightening SD card reader, what format does the videos have to be in?
My camera is AVCHD .MTS format and I would like to view these videos on my iPad. IS THERE AN EASY WAY TO DO THIS?
I have tried to convert them to .MOV but the quality is realy bad compared with the original.

You can import AVCHD MTS 1080p 30p videos to iMovie, however, you cannot directly import 1080/60p or 50p MTS videos to iMovie, you need to convert MTS to imovie compatible mp4 or mov first.

Similar Messages

Fastest iMovie Video Import Fromat for iDVD Processing

Which iMovie video import format will end up being converted the fastest when I export the final result into iDVD?
Should I use DV? MPG4? Or one of the others?
Just what format DOES iDVD convert iMovies into? Seems to take a REALLY long time, even with my iMac G5. If I could initially import the raw video into the same format, seems logical it would take less time for iDVD to do its thing.
Thanks!
iMac G5, Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

DV is the native format for iMovie and iDVD. Encoding contents to mpeg2 is a looong process in iDVD.
Of course authoring a DVD in an app like DVD Studio Pro with mpeg2 files would be a time saver, however unlike DVD SP, iDVD does not except mpeg2 files. (it only encodes to mpeg2).
I usually bring my iMovie project into iDVD as a flatten project.
Meaning all the A/V tracks, transitions, effects, titles, etc. comprising a iMovie project is shared/exported as a DV file(s) into a new project.
I check to make sure the DV file(s) play correctly in the new project and just add chapter markers save and close iMovie. Open iDVD, import the iMovie project, author the DVD and wait for it to finish.
I find iDVD works more efficiently/faster encoding when it doesn't have to deal with mulitple audio tracks, transitons, effects, titles etc.
It also reduces the number of encoding errors that can occur in iDVD.

IMovie video import: It only finds videos in iPhoto?!

Based on Jobs' roll-out presentation, I expected iMovie 08 to find "all" my video files, as he stated it would. In fact, it only found and displayed my low resolution still camera videos that had been imported into iPhoto. (Does anyone actually use iPhoto for video files from DV or HD cameras?)
Granted, this is a really cool way to collect and view all those iPhoto videos that I've never really looked at before, but what I want to edit with iMovie is my DV video that is dispersed on a few drives and in many folders. I expected iMovie to search for and provide access to all of those files too.
Apparently the only way to access my DV video files is to either copy or move them. Neither is practical. Copying all that video would be a huge waste of disc space. Moving them would destroy all my existing FCP and iMovie HD projects.
Why can't iMovie find all my existing videos wherever they are and in whatever format? Then I could view their content and import (and thus copy) only the individual clips I want to use in an iMovie project. That would only duplicate the video files that are actually being used.
iMovie 08 has great potential for a consumer video editing tool, and it will obviously grow in features and capability over time. However, the release version is quite obviously a work in progress. Once again it is clear that Apple considers its software users to be beta testers...and they let us pay for the privilege.

+I can't import any video into iMovie. It imported 2 videos from iPhoto and that was all. I have about 30 videos in iPhoto. I've tried it all.+
Search trough this forum a bit. Some people have reported problems with certain characters in file names. It also only imports certain video formats. Some still cameras produce video clips in "unusual" formats that require conversion before iMovie '08 accepts it.

IMovie video import format questions

I'm a new user to iMovie, I tried to import a .AVI file into iMovie and I could not drop and drag the file into the edit window. Ok.. iMovie must not support .AVI files, so I thought I would use Toast 9 to convert the files to .mp4 and .mov and even tired divx format. I burned these files into the movies folder and went back to imovie and used "File" "Import movie" browsed to the movies folder but no luck the files were grayed out. But other files that were .mp4 were available for use. Has anyone seen this before? Do I need to head over to Toast help. But just now I pulled up a .AVI file from na external HD and I was able to drop and drag the file into iMovie. Going file nuts here....

The problem with the MPEG 4 export from Toast is that it writes a text track. I've used QuickTime Pro to delete that track and the MPEG 4 is then recognized by iMovie 08. (By the way, iMovie HD recognizes the Toast MPEG 4 export without deleting the text track).
A different option is to use Toast to export as DV. This should work with iMovie 08.

Using iMovie 7.1.4 on an iMac w/ Snow Leopard; HD video imported with a Firewire cable transfers fine, but audio arrives with major static; problem persists w/ different cameras

Using iMovie 7.1.4 on an iMac w/ Snow Leopard; HD video imported with a Firewire cable transfers fine, but audio arrives with major static; problem persists w/ different cameras & Firewire cables; source DV tape has no audfio static.

I forgot to write down my computer specs:
iMac 27 Mid 2011
2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB
OS X 10.9.2

Can i connect a Samsung VP-D381 to iMovie to import videos?

I have recently bought a Samsung VP-D381 Mini DV camcorder, and have just tried to connect it to iMovie to import a video that i have just recorded, only to find that Samsung do not have any software or drivers for the Apple OS...
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how i could get this to work?
Thanks

Hello,
(I posted the same answer to a similar thread)
I have the same camcorder and same issue, though with iMovie '09.
Symptoms on my Samsung VP-D381 are :
I can import when in Camera mode (live capture)
I cannot import what has been recorded on tape (import window stays blue)
I can forward and rewind and stop.
I found a trick I hope will be useful for you :
open iMovie.
without connecting it yet, put your Panasonic on "Play".
when video plays, plug the DV cable in.
iMovie opens the video import window and then you should see the tape playing.
press the "Import" button to capture the DV stream.
Let me know if you find other ways to get it to work. I'm quite frustrated Samsung cannot make a DV camcorder work with iMovie, 14 years after DV went out!
Pierre
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.5.6)

HT204382 i have a kodak camera which i recorded video and i have and macbook labtop and when goes on imovie to import it cannot, what is my problem?

i have a kodak camera which i recorded video and i have and macbook labtop and when goes on imovie to import it cannot, what is my problem?

I found this previous post. Does it help?
"Movie '09 and the Kodak Playsport HD".
His advice worked like a charm:
"This camera is a lot of fun and when i connected it to iMovie 09 I, in the first case, had to go to File, Import Movies and navigate to the SD card and choose all the .mov files which then imported seamlessly. Was able to edit and share the movie no problem."
Hope this helps

IMovie Skipping After Video Import?

I am using iMovie 8.0.5 and a Black MacBook. I have a MiniDV Panasonic camcorder that I bought a couple of years ago. It takes good video, but when I try importing it into iMovie, the imported video skips every so often. I am using a FireWire 400 cable between my computer and camcorder. I have quit all of the other programs when I am importing.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance!
Dave

I found a work-around for this problem. I tried importing to my MacBook Pro's internal drive instead of the external drive I'm using to store my video footage. From there, iMovie '09 lets me copy the imported footage to the external drive. It's not the solution I prefer, but it works for now.
Has anybody else even had this problem? I've seen very few reports of this problem and even fewer suggestions for possible solutions. BTW I'm running Snow Leopard's 64 bit kernal. Could that be a factor here?

Poor video from iMovie 11 imported from supported Sony HD camcorder

Poor video from iMovie 11 imported from supported Sony HD camcorder
Latest model New iMac 27 " screen 3.4 ghz intel core I7, 12 GB of memory running Mac OS X version 10.7.4
Imovie 11 version 9.0.7
New Sony hd camcorder model HDR560V, 64 gigs of internal flash memory, recording at highest quality hd settings.
Transfer is via USB.
Video in camcorder screen is perfect, same video connected directly from camera to a monitor is perfect. Also seems to be ok when importing into a Mac Book pro.
Import into the iMac using iMovie 11and played back full screen on the iMac has the look of soft VHS tape, not tack sharp and pronounced video lag when panning or when a subject moves across the screen. Has anyone else resolved a similar issue? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I paid for 3 years of Apple protection care but Genius bar experts at local Apple store are stumped.
thanks
tvideo

I'm sorry, I didn't know Imovie has it's own Forum- it's not listed here. Looks like I need an adapter for memory card, because I have an older Mac which doesn't have a slot for the card.

New Macbook video import problem.

Hi all,
I have just gone and bought myself a new Macbook Pro and I am very pleased with it. From a video standpoint I plan to use it to import and edit HD video from my Canon HV20. The new Macbook only has a Firewire 800 port and so the cable that I would normally use to connect computer and camcorder will not work as it is 'mini' Firewire to Firewire 400. I am assuming that there is/will be a 'mini' to FW800 cable available, but in the interim I am using a Firewire hub that is connected to the Macbook by a 400-800 cable. And herein lies my problem ! Although iMovie8 detects my HV20, it will not display or play or import any footage from the tape ! It just remains on the blue import screen and although the camcorder is merrily 'playing', no footage is actually making it across to the computer. I think the issue is the Firewire hub part of the connection but I thought it best to garner an opinion from users of this forum. Help !!
Many thanks in advance, kroguk
PS
I will also post this on the Macbook forum, so apologies if you see this post twice

Well, I can't find my Belkin FW800-to-4-pin (9-pin-to-4-pin) cable right now ..I'm doing some "tidying up" ..which is always hopeless for finding things afterwards!.. but I DID buy the other day - in the German Mac specialists, erm, can't remember the name - a Sonnet Fast-something (..which I've just put down, and now can't find..) teeny 9-pin-to-6-pin adapter (..so small that I can't find it!..) and I've just tested that with a Sony HC1 HDV camcorder.
Using the Sonnet adaptor..
..which is mentioned on their website at top-left here: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/adapters/index.html ..on a normal 6-pin-to-4-pin FireWire cable.. I just connected my camcorder and successfully imported HDV from the Sony.
I tested it twice with iMovie HD 6, in the most adverse conditions: 1; connecting to the 9-pin FW800 socket on a G4 17" laptop (..which is generally too slow to import HDV in real-time..) and 2; looped ("daisy-chained") through the 9-pin FW800 sockets (..one socket from the drive to my Mac, the other socket from the drive to the camcorder..) of an external iOmega FireWire drive connected to my Quad G5 Mac, also with iMovie HD 6. Both imports worked perfectly.
I'm also trying it as I write this - I just found the adapter again! - to import into iMovie '08 on the G5, daisy-chained through the external disc (..the G4 is too old or underpowered to run iMovie '08..) and that works as well ..though I did have to "kick" the program into starting a new Event; at first the camera transport ran, but no video imported, so I just Stopped and re-imported.
I bought this adaptor "on spec", as no previous device or adapter had worked properly for me (..converting between 4-pin on a camcorder and 9-pin on a Mac..) and this is the first to have worked, for me. But I have great faith in Sonnet, as they make the extra S-ATA driver card and other bits and bobs which I put in my floorstander G5, and that all "just works".
Ah; the shop where I bought it is ..hold on a moment.. the "m store" in Munich. (Karsten may know them: when Gravis moved from Lindwurmstrasse to Im Tal, the m store opened up right next door to where Gravis had been before) and they're at Lindwurmstrasse 5a, their phone number - they speak English, too - is 0049 89 24 22 35 24 and their website is ..aaaarggh; they don't seem to have one.
Anyway; the Sonnet SimplyFast FireWire 400-to-800 Adapter works perfectly - for me - on the end of a normal 4-pin-to-6-pin FireWire 400 cable, and importing works flawlessly every way I've tried it ..even daisy-chained through an external drive.
I can heartily recommend it.
But - as always - "your mileage may vary" ..meaning that it might not work so smoothly for you.

Video import from PAL camcorder

I have just bought a Canopus ADVC110 which converts analog video to digital and have it hooked into my Powerbook Pro via a firewire lead.
I have my analog PAL camcorder tied into the canopus and am attempting to import some PAL video but not getting very far.
I fire up iMovie and it does indeed detect the camera but when I create a new project it appears as DV-NTSC and not DV-PAL. I have changed the 'New Project frame rate' preference from 29.97 to 25 but still no good. When I click on Import I get the video/audio but the video is VERY jumpy and in black and white and the audio is totally garbled. As the video is PAL and the project says DV-NTSC this might be the issue? I would have thought that the Canopus would remove any PAL/NTSC issues as it is being converted to digital anyway? I don't know how to change the new project from DV-NTSC to DV-PAL, again I thought switching frame rate to 25 would have done this?
So, can anyone help me get a smooth video import onto the Apple? I dont care what resulting file format is as long as I can import and play it. I don't mind buying a different video application if necessary and do have Toast Titanium if that helps.
Many thanks,

It sounds like you may not have set the dip switches of the Canopus correctly to PAL.
See page 16 of instruction manual for the canopus ADVC110!
(I use the same one)

HT3481 Panasonic TZ40 camera, single video import problem

Connecting my new Panasonic TZ40 camera by cable to my iMac (lion OS- iMovie 11) uploads stills OK but video is a problem, the camera format is AVCHD. A single video uploads 9 separate files - see below - and without the audio sound track.
.MTS .CPI .CPI .MPL .TDT .TID .BDM .BDM .DAT
The .MTS has a big memory (the others are very small) and will play in VLC player I have on my Mac, but without sound. I tried running it through a video convertor software which converts it successfully to AVI without audio, as you would expect because the original has no sound in the .MTS file.
I was aware that Mac did not readily support AVCHD in the past but was assured by the Camera shop that it was now OK - which it plainly is not. Is there an easy workaround without losing the HD quality, or would I be wise to take it back to the camera shop and choose another camera manufacturer that is more compatible with a Mac, if so what make would other members recommend.
My previous camera was a Samsung which recorded AVI files which I uploaded and was able to import into iMovie without any problems.

I have sorted the sound issue, it was an unrelated problem to the Panasonic TZ40 recording.
However, I think there may be a misunderstanding of the importing of the video/movie from the camera. I import the camera stills and video/movies directly into a computer folder through the Adobe Bridge 'Get images from camera' icon. I do not want to import video/movies directly into iMovie as I do not always need to edit them imediatly (if at all sometimes) and I prefer the originals to be in a folder. I have tried settings of 50 and 50i but still get the same results.
I have converted the .MTS file to a .AVI (and other formats) which iMovie successfully opens, but the .MTS file at 100MB is reduced to 50MB in .AVI and others. My concern is that one of the reasons I bought this camera was for its HD1920 video/movie, if the pre edited conversion is going to reduce the quality then the camera does not do what I asked of the seller.
Basically if I cannot make use of the HD1920 facility in this camera then I need another make which will import an HD1920 video/movie in a format that Mac can hold in a folder and iMovie can import at that quality. If anyone has any recommendations I would be glad to hear them.

Aperture Video Import Problem - from Lumix GH4: Imported clips have their dates changed to the import date. The files show up on the hard drive but many are not showing up in Aperture.

Aperture Video Import Problem - from Lumix GH4: Imported clips have their dates changed to the import date. The files show up on the hard drive with import date not created date, but many of these same files are not showing up in Aperture. Sometimes the clips actually show up with the current import but take on the video information from a previously imported file.

It was suggested I move this question to IPhoto or IMovie which I did.
Well moving to a different discussion group did not provide an answer to this question either. But what I finally did was import one batch of photos and videos into IPhoto for a given day at a time. Working with these I could change the date and times in order to get them in the original sequench taken. Then I would create an album with that batch. These would all be on the same day (IMove was closed for this phase). Then I would open IMovie, generate the thumbnails for that album, and select the album I had created. This was necessary because the importing process in IPhoto was using incorrect dates for my video so it was a real struggle finding them in IMove until I developed this approach.
I believe that this whole process was so screwy because I was importing from an external hard drive not a camera. I had these photos on a PC and did not have the original cameras to use to import directly which I am fairly sure would have made this easier!

Video Import problems

Hi Everyone,
I wonder if someone could advise about a problem? We have a
number of video clips from a client in WMV format and wish to
import into Flash 8. We did this without any problems and created
the flv files using the video import wizard. The client however
wanted us not to include the audio as is was really just background
factory noise. During the video import steps - Encoding, I selected
'Show Advanced Settings' and unticked 'Encode Audio'
Now however the video doesn't import at all and an empty
SWF/flv file is produced. Am I doing something incorrectly or is
there a better way to 'remove' the audio?
Any advice greatly appreciated
Many thanks
Dave

Hi christopher,
If the video is large, iPhoto has a problem importing it sometimes.
My camera can take large size videos so I import all my images and video clips with Image Capture. I put all the images in a dated folder ready for backup and also import them into iPhoto.
I put all my video clips in dated folders and keep them in my Movies folder to use for projects in iMovie and iDVD and they are also easier to backup this way.
Lori

Confused about Sony HDR-SR7 and iMovie '08 import

I have my camera set to record at HD XP (15Mb/s). If I look on the camera hard drive at an arbitrary .mts file that is 107.3MB and import that into iMovie '08 at the Full (1920x1080) setting, that 107.3MB file turns into a whopping 854.5MB, while the Large (960x540) setting yields a much more reasonable 287.3MB file size (yet still double the size of the raw file sitting on the hard drive).
There's got to be some re-encoding going on, but what's the point? Why take a 100MB file and explode it to 800MB when you can't get any more quality out of the 100MB file?
Is it just the fact that iMovie doesn't actually support whatever native codec Sony's AVCHD uses, so it needs to re-encode it using AIC whose compression isn't as good as whatever codec AVCHD is using?
So this poses a real dilemma for me - do I import at Full or do I import at Large? Where does one notice the difference? If I blow up the 960 file to display the same size as the 1920 file, I can totally see artifacts on my 30" ACD, but would they show up on my Pioneer plasma TV? PDP-5070HD (1365x768))
Assuming I stay on Full quality - is there any way I can accurately tell how much hard drive space an import is going to consume? Right now my 60GB drive is rammed to the gills and I want to dump it all, but I need to make sure I have the space. 1:8?

Hi
*First: it sounds like you are not importing to iMovie, it sounds like you are trying to browse to the clips. That may not work.*
Ok - I was trying to import and also to view directly on the camcorder (but not at the same time). It was maybe 2 questions rolled into one so apologies if that was confusing...
*Second:You have SD and HD mixed, All of the SD has to be imported before any HD can be imported according to the manual.*
So what would I do, import SD movies first, and then delete it to then import HD specifically? Or do I just import SD and then import HD separately without deleting SD footage from the camcorder?
*Third point: The clips can be on the hard drive or the card. The camera has to be set to the media with the clips you want to import. If you recorded to the card, then switched to the hard drive, you won't be able to import the card video until you switch back.*
I dont have a card at the moment - only using the HDD.
*When you have the import working it is a matter of using the check box to select the clips you want.*
i assume iMovie loads them all up and asks you which ones you want to import?
*Alos one final point for video on the card I find it much easier to use a card reader to import. When I plug in the card reader to my usb port it mounts on the desk top, I start iMovie and the import screen comes up after iMovie is all opened up and running.*
I dont see much point in the card reader at the moment as the HDD is 120GB whereas I assume memory sticks only go to 8GB or so max...
*I hope I have been of some help.*
yes thanks for that - but am still confused by the whoel iMovie & HD import situation and how I should be doing it
All help appreciated

IMovie Video Import

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for